Ch. 2: Along, along the gleaming path
(Return to Arheled) '' Sent: April 11th, 2011 to rondowendo@yahoo.com, hunteroflight@hotmail.com, lakell2npk@sbcglobal.net, riverbrooke537k@hotmail.com, travellanet58@yahoo.com. '' '' Subject: Pratt Hill. '' '' Hi everyone, it’s Lara. '' '' I went up Pratt Hill today. The top is like a sloping helmet of stone crowning the hill, open, with oddly regular stones scattered everywhere, and here’s the strange thing: I found three places where the bedrock was sort of'' cut,'' making square pits with perfect angles, big slabs placed on end to complete the squares. I have no idea what this might mean, but I wanted to let everyone know. '' '' Lara Midwinter '' '' '' '' Re: Pratt Hill. Replied April 11th 2011 from rondowendo@yahoo.com. '' '' Hullo Lara. '' '' This sounds really interesting. Were the three cuts symmetrical, were they arranged lined up or were they in a triangle? How far apart were they? Was it at the summit? Which way were they facing? Did you see how big they were? Were they square or rectangular? And is three all there were, or did you not look for any others? Are they cut into the bedrock, or sort of formed by slabs lying on the ground? '' '' Sorry, this sounds like an overload of questions. Maybe I’d better go there myself. '' '' Ronmond Wendtho '' '' '' '' Re: Pratt Hill. Replied April 11th 2011 from midwinter1st@sbcglobal.net. '' '' Hi Ronnie. '' '' Wow, I’ve never seen so many questions in one paragraph. How do you think of all these things? Most of them never even occurred to me to notice. I think there was one in the middle-like, larger, with one side an L broken out of the bedrock, and two others farther downhill. One was under a hemlock. Sort of a triangle arrangement. They weren’t at the summit, sort of downhill from it, on the—let me see, where was the sun—I guess on the south. But yes, I think you should go there yourself. '' '' Lara Midwinter '' '' '' '' Sent: April 11th 2011 to travellanet58@yahoo.com. '' '' Subject: Ruins at 7:00! '' '' Hullo Travel. '' '' Did you get Lara’s letter? I asked her so many questions she told me to go and look for myself, so I’m heading up there tomorrow. You want to come? I could meet you at St. Joseph’s. '' '' Ronmond Wendtho '' '' '' '' Re: Ruins at 7:00! Replied from travellanet58@yahoo.com. April 11th. '' '' Hey Ronniee! '' '' So nice to hear from you! A hike sounds like fun. I think I can make it in about 1:00. At St. Joe’s? '' '' Travel0 '' '' '' '' Re: Re: Re: Ruins at 7:00! Replied from rondowendo@yahoo.com April 11th '' '' “Hey Travel. '' '' Yes, at St. Joe’s. I gotta run, the library’s closing. Bye! '' '' Ronnie '' '' '' '' '' Travel Lane drove up the sloping drive in front of St. Joseph’s the next day. It was warm, but cloudy, and felt cool after yesterday’s heat. Ronnie was sitting on his bike, which was already locked to one of the two flagpoles. A bulging black garbage bag lay nearby, proclaiming his continued activity in the service of the Most Benevolent Order. When he saw her he placed this out of sight behind the holly bushes in the left corner of the front stairs and church wall. “Hop in, Ronnie.” she directed. “Where to?” Ronnie accordingly hopped in. “I think our best bet is to park at Resha Beach and walk up. Ward’s Hill is right in that area, and I want to see what that’s like first.” “Well, you’re gonna have to direct me.” He directed her up Prospect, then up the steep Pratt St and right at the fork with Hurlbut, up past the spring to the broad intersection next to the old Bruno’s store. A sign proclaimed it was now some cleaning company. They parked in the low flat parking lot at the corner and walked up the shore road. They passed the road Lara had taken and went on past the head of Sandy Cove (which had no sand at all). Ahead a steep low hillside lay, terraced with houses. “That must be Ward’s.” said Ronnie. The shore road curved right to bypass the hill, but a narrow side street on the left climbed practically straight up. Ronnie and Travel soon found their breath coming hard as they plodded up it. Little boxlike rectangular cottages rose one above another on both sides, endwise to the road, sided in pale pastel blue and beige and faint lemon. Little terraced rock gardens surrounded some. The road levelled out on top and became lumpy dirt. A scattered forsythia hedge stood on the left, bordering a compact yard and a somewhat more houselike white bungalow. Then they passed a low old house in faded blue and entered woods. It was so odd to see street signs on a dirt road amid trees. The road ended at a T with another dirt road, climbing up from the right. To the left it went down a little into a level saddle, open under very tall trees. Near the intersection stood the strangest and most mysterious cabin either had seen. It was small, two-room probably, shallow-peaked, vertical plank siding painted stone-grey. Several cars were parked near it, two under tarps but one looking fuctional. A strange old door stood partway open in the low front side. It had small windows. Stacks of firewood under tarps and all sorts of household debris gave the little yard a cluttered appearance. But this was not what made them stare. It was the stonework all around the cabin. A low wall battlemented with odd short pillars made of pebbles ran along the front, bigger pillars guarding the driveway, and more strange pillars ringed the yard. The whole thing was overshadowed by huge gloomy spruce and white pine, giving it a dark mystery. “Look.” muttered Ronnie. “Something’s written in the mortar, there in that pillar. Built by V.C. McColl, AD—“ he dug at the base, “OK, this is weird—1927, but the 2 has a closed loop. Look.” “Ronnie, I think somebody still lives here.” Travel urged. “I don’t think we should be acting suspicious.” Ronnie sighed and headed on down the road. “''Eight from dark pines soon is culled.” he quoted, and suddenly began to laugh. “And the Mc''Coll cabin has dark pines. Maybe I’ll pretend to want to rent it and ask whoever lives there about its’ history.” “Is this all of Ward’s Hill?” “Looks like it.” said Ronnie as they took the crossroads Lara had found. “It wasn’t very big, according to the map.” They followed, coincidentally, the same way up the mountain Lara had, following the rough logging track uphill until it ended on the high terrace, then straight up to the top. When they got to the summit, despite the cool air both were sweaty. They rested for a little and then Ronnie stood up and glanced around. “There’s the middle!” he exclaimed, heading up the jeep track to the shallow pit. The uphill side was fractured cleanly like an L and on the wrong side of the L lay a pit, flat-floored, discernible traces of stones along one leg of the L. Casting about Ronnie soon located the second cut, nearly straight downhill under a hemlock. On the uphill side the foot-deep rectangular pit was sided with a right angle of clean-cut bedrock, as rectangular as if hewn. Forming the right side of the rectangle was a long huge slab, set on end as it were. “This isn’t exactly conclusive evidence of a ruin, Ronnie.” said Travel. “It could be natural fracture and glacial plucking.” “Setting that slab? Riiight.” drawled Ronnie. He scurried about, here and there, muttering to himself, an odd abstract knot in his brows and a level, fierce light in his eyes. Travel, trying to keep up, found with him no less than five total of the strange cuts. One lay almost straight left of the middle cut (facing south), at the bottom of a broken descent of rocks ten feet high: the edge of the hill crown. It too was a clean rectangle, one side an end-sunk slab. The ones Lara hadn’t noticed were uphill of the center cut: one nearly straight behind, under dark tangled hemlock, the L’s uphill corner clean-cut bedrock, a layer of great square-broken stones in rectangular shapes forming the right side and covering a good deal of ground beyond. A row of such blocks lay in a narrow line between this and the central pit. The last was a box-shaped formation in an open swell of ground at an angle behind the center pit, which Travel didn’t see at all until Ronnie pointed out the end-set slabs, set in a square maybe six feet across, like the sides of a cistern. Pulling a tapemeasure Ronnie proceeded to measure, as Travel watched bemused, the distance between the cuts, noting it in his battered notebook and swatting the gnats that seemed to be haunting the hilltop. “Okay, Travel, look at this.” said Ronnie excitedly. “This is what I’ve come up with.” Travel examined his odd diagram: “That’s gotta be the weirdest structure ever.” she said doubtfully. “And what makes you so convinced these are ruins?” “Look around you!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Everywhere are scattered stones square-angled against the grain, with angles I only see in basalt, never granite. We have these perfectly symmetrical cuts, three of them identical. '' Something stood here, Travel…something that was not built by any known peoples of America''. Something that left its’ prints. I think it was a tower. A tower with four pylons or flying buttresses arching overhead, supported by a central trunk 40 feet square, sort of like the roots on a tree. Ice and Deluge shattered it, scattered its’ stones. Look at the view, Travel! This hill is higher than anything within two miles—only the Winchester highlands are at a greater elevation.” “If it’s a tower, why wasn’t it built at the summit?” Travel asked, looking uphill. Ronnie poked around the summit for another half hour, finding two more cuts, other breaks and pits which he dismissed as natural, and square-faced but rough blocks set evenly in a square at the summit which he pronounced as likely just a cabin foundation. “But the tower may have had attendant outbuildings, or a palace.” he said. “Who on earth could possibly build something like this?!” “Atlantis, maybe?” Ronnie suggested humerously. “Did you know they’re turning up ruined cities in Southern Africa that show a pre-glacial civilization far more complex than was ever thought? As well as a triple-ringed city foundation in the Spanish coastal marshes?” “Oh, please, not comic-book myths!” “Actually, Atlantis is a historically-attested city, referred to by Plato if I recall rightly. He placed it off Gibraulter and said it was overthrown by a giant wave and left a dangerous shoaly area. He also claims they were an empire that clashed with Athens, but I think Atlantis could hardly have been that recent. Especially given that scientists today don’t believe in the Deluge, proclaim four Ice Ages, and hold that man began in Africa, I doubt they’re in any position to deny the reality of Atlantis.” “Why do you say Atlantis wasn’t as recent as Athens?” Ronnie arched his eyebrows. “Athens is post-Flood, so are the Greeks. The Flood was placed by carbon-dating ancient cities in the Middle East as around 7000 BC. Athens wasn’t inhabited any earlier than 4000 BC, and certainly wasn’t a major military power until a few hundred years before Christ—the Spartans held that claim since the Persian wars. But Atlantis was pre-Egypt. Plato dates it at 9600 BC. In fact, Egypt may have been founded by survivors of Atlantis, then rediscovered by Noe’s sons. It would make sense if written records survived the Flood, but were destroyed by time and writing forgotten, and oral legend passed the story down and completely butchered it. Athens would certainly have wanted to establish a reputation for itself by claiming it defeated Atlantis, and you only have to repeat a story for a couple generations for it to become gospel-truth tradition.” “So you think Atlantis existed?” Ronnie met her eyes. “I think Atlantis may have been Numenor.” Travel stared at him for a minute and then shook her head. “Now that really is reading too much into things.” As they began the climb down Ronnie was still talking. “Yes, but Tolkien felt the same way about Numenor as about Middle-earth—that it was coming through '' to him. He had a recurrent dream of a huge green wave devouring a classical-style ancient city. But the moment he wrote the story of Numenor, the dream ended and he never had it again.” “Ronnie, if I were to hear about actual inscriptions found in Numenorean Cirith, I might believe you.” laughed Travel. “I don’t think Numenor used the Elf-runes in it’s latest days.” said Ronnie. “I think they developed their own lettering system, or style at least. Pippin refers to the ‘flowing characters of Numenor’ on the Barrow-blade; perhaps they invented hieroglyphics to try to replace Elf-letters.” “You’re hopelessly deluded.” They walked quickly on the way back; Travel wanted to get back to her car before she ran out of time, as she had a party at 5 to get ready for. “What’s left to be done with the hills?” she said. “Camp…Pond…Case Mt.” he answered, ticking them off on his fingers. “You wanna do Case Mt with me?” “Let’s see, we’d be looking for ‘''fish in a buried case’…” “No,” Ronnie said, shaking his head savagely. “''Buried case'' meant Case Mt. Something either in the ground or buried but noticeable to a passerby which has something to do with fish. Why fish, I have no idea.” “I think maybe later this week I’m free.” '' Sent: April 12th, 2011, to midwinter1st@sbcglobal.net, hunteroflight@hotmail.com, lakell2npk@sbcglobal.net, riverbrooke537k@hotmail.com, travellanet58@yahoo.com. '' '' Subject: Quest of 9 Hillfold '' '' … so that’s what lurks on Pratt Hill. And if anyone dares to doubt my infallibility let him be anathema. So, let’s see. There’s still Pond Hill and Soldier’s Tower, but the Tower doesn’t open till May. And Case MT. It’s a big mt, so feel free to help. I feel like hunting a needle in a leafpile. '' '' Ronmond Wendtho '' '' '' '' Replied April 12th from riverbrooke537k@hotmail.com: '' '' So hers are not to be anathematized? '' '' '' '' Replied April 12th from midwinter1st@sbcglobal.net: '' '' Where does a wise man hide a leaf…In the leafpile. And I didn’t know you’d gone in for Holy Orders, Ronnie, let alone been elected Pope! '' '' Lara '' '' '' '' Replied April 12th from lakell2npk@sbcglobal.net: '' '' Pond Hill. I’ve already done it. Yesterday—no, sorry, Sunday. I forgot to tell everyone. It’s all streets, you know but on Lake St where the steep hill is, at the curve, that very ancient stone house…I’m almost certain that’s the Old that has in writ bold, but there was a dog and it smelled me and I escaped across the ravine but I don’t want to go there again. '' '' Forest '' '' '' '' Replied April 12th from rondowendo@yahoo.com: '' '' Brooke. I’m surprised at you. You ought to know the general tense of him includes all human beings including girls. '' '' Lara. I knew you’d put a Chesterton quote in somewhere. Yes, I never got to share the good news, but they raised me through the hierarchy in exactly 5 minutes and even obligingly assassinated the Holy Father, all to put me in the Chair! I suppose a lay Pope would count more as a antipope or invalidpope. Maybe that should be nullpope. '' '' OK, you Protestants, those were Catholic jokes. Sorry. Deep scraping bows of apology. '' '' On a serious note, though, Forest, you’re the only one of us who’s—um—good at, ah, blending in. If you like I’ll come along and knock at the door with some crazy excuse to keep dog and owner occupied. '' '' Oh, and the Tower won’t be open till Memorial Day. I suggest we all meet there at 2:00, those of us who can. '' '' '' '' '' Forest got up and had an unusual experience: somebody else was in the bathroom. Usually he was up before Mom.The experience was compounded by Mom coming out a minute later and adding to the line, followed by his new sister coming out in pink and white pajamas with little strawberries all over them. She looked touseled and freshly pretty. “Morning, sweetheart.” Mom said, kissing Bell’s forehead. “I wish I’d been here to welcome you in—''Forest, don’t you dare, I need to go to work!” and Mom quickly vanished into the disputed chamber. Forest made a gloomy face at Bell and they both tittered. “What’s for breakfast?” said Bell. “And your pajamas look stupid.” When Forest gave her a frozen stare, Bell started laughing. “Hey, I was just joshing you, okay? Sheesh, you have really got to lighten up.” “You’re weird.” he managed to say. “Oh good, you’re catching on. So, show me where Mom hides the goodies.” “In a locked dungeon.” Forest said gloomily. “And she swallowed the key.” Bell’s mouth dropped a little. “Wow. You are good. When you actually manage to open your mouth, that is. Maybe I should throw a cat at your face.” “I haven’t got buttons sewn on my eyes yet.” “I '' thought you’d watched that one.” They fixed themselves a bowl apiece of Lucky Charms, diluted with ordinary Tasteoos, and contentedly munched away as they sprawled on the sofa. Bell would say something now and again, and Forest would nod or say nothing amiably. Bell began making little “queenk queenk queenk” noises for no reason until her brother was howling with laughter. Mrs. Lake emerging from the bathroom paused in shock just outside the living room: it was the first time in five years she had heard him laugh like that. It made tears come into her eyes. She hurried to her room to get ready for work: no need to disturb the two when they were getting along so well. Fights, as surely there would be when they’d lived in the same house, would come later. “Queenk queeeennk.” squeaked Bell through her nose. “Oh, stop it!” Forest was bawling as he flopped all over the floor. “Ah ha ha ha ha!” “Queenk queeenk.” '' Sent: April 15th, 2011 from rondowendo@yahoo.com, to all: '' '' Hullo everyone, it’s Ronnie. '' '' Travel and I spent all yesterday rambling along Case Mt. We started in the big mossy boulders above Maple St, out by the skateboard park, and climbed up to the Batcheller School trail and then along the cliffs until houses made us detour. So far, nothing. Not even a rock shaped like a fish. Great view and interesting terrain, though. '' '' '' Forest headed along Lake St and up past the old stone house. It was an unimpressing structure; square, masonry walls rising to a peak at each end, flat cemented walls with irregular smallish fieldstones showing. Black-painted rough beams were inset into the masonry under the front eaves in the peaked walls, running five feet in. Two brick chimneys, one at either end, were built into the masonry. In the front were several windows and a door; the roof came right down to the lintel. The yard widened on the uphill side, cluttered but cheerful. The roof was shingled warm brown. It was built on the very edge of the ravine of the outlet stream; a sheer wall of rugged stone fell from the narrow back yard some 25 feet to the great rounded boulders and flat surfaces of bedrock over which the stream ran. It was barely a trickle at the moment despite the pounding rains of last night; the spillway gates were shut and the lake was returning to normal level, which meant little water was going down the stream. He had examined the front and right sides already, but despite his invisibility he preferred to examine the uphill, left, side while standing on the street. Again, he saw nothing, except way up where the chimney met the roof, on a black beam gold numbers were fastened, saying 1790. At first he thought it was a house number but now he realized it was probably the date the house was built. It was the only thing “writ bold” about that entire house, as far as he could see; but of course, he hadn’t checked the back. Mindful of the dog, he decided to study it from across the ravine. The square of woodland between the lake outlet and Boyd St was once the scene of Winsted’s busiest places, where wheels churned and forges rang and machinery pounded, driven by the ceaseless strength of falling water. Now all was silent. In the corner by the spillways the old Union Pin factory was now a quaint ruin, concrete floors and bush-grown foundations, conical pillars and sudden canyons of stonework where sluices emptied, a few chunks of dead machinery rising sadly from the masking cottonwoods. One building remained, a wood-and-cinder-block structure of several rooms beside Lake St, the sluice from the spillway gates running behind it, boarded up with a torrentially leaky roof. A sign on it still read Union Pin Co. The stream (in summer, at least) poured over the lower of the double spillways into a stony tangle of thick yellow reeds amid rocks and pussy willows. This sloped away, becoming a rocky watercourse as it curved around the foundations, until the banks rose and it became a ravine. Forest stepped from rock to rock with ease. Below the factory the stream flowed over rolling slopes of bare stone, stained white and green with dried water-growths and moss. Then a steep earthy bluff came in on the east where Lake St passed above the brook, and the stone bed plunged more steeply into a moderately deep rockpool below a high concrete wall. Masonry of big stacked stones shut in the lower ravine as far as Boyd Street. Forest climbed the low wall and followed a path on the far side of the brook, across from Lake St. A large brushy open area here was all that remained of the lower factories, smashed into matchwood by the fury of the Great Flood of 1955: two terraces, with two reedy swamps where millponds had been, from which the doleful cheeping of the peepers was already rising. The path followed the high bank between these and the ravine. At the far edge of the open were backyards under big high oaks, a side street beyond them. Forest pushed past young locust saplings and came to the top of a curving strip of asphalt, leading down between brush and blackberries to a small parking lot above Boyd St , a hundred feet away and a little below. Steel bars shut off the cliff above an outwork of cement. Forest looked down into the ravine. The concrete wall fell nearly twenty feet. The stream came down a steep swell of solid rock, split by a big groove where the water had exploited some old fault in the granite, and below the wall was a deep clear pool formed by a natural dam of stones. It looked deep enough for diving. Forest glanced downstream. The ravine on the near side was formed of huge boulders piled atop each other; on the far side, across a bay eaten out of the hill, rose the yard of the strange stone house. Even examining it with binoculars revealed nothing. Nothing, that is, except the date 1790. “Ronnie! Ron, sweetie, where are you running off to now?” clucked Mrs. Deer. Ronnie Wendy glanced up from his bike as he oiled the chain. All three of his landladies were coming toward him. “Hello, Mrs. Deer.” he said, putting the oil down. “Hello, ladies. How is everything?” “We were just going to ask you that question.” said Mrs. Hill in her doleful voice. “Really, Hill darling, that’s hardly the way to talk to a nice young man who’s so very good to us. And to make it through this hard winter as well, I must say, I’m so glad you stuck it out. Nobody else was able to make it in there once the cold weather set in and all—“ chirped Mrs. Pine. “We simply haven’t seen very much of you lately,” gushed Mrs. Deer, “with you shooting off on your bike all the time, and church functions on our part, and Pine was just saying, ‘How is the dear boy these days?’ and I said ‘Why, he’s right out there!’ Do you want to have supper with us tonight?” “Why, that’s very nice of you.” smiled Ronnie. “But no thanks. I have all these errands to run and I don’t know when I’ll be back.” “Oh yes, you bike everywhere, I was forgetting, so silly of me, and so sensible too, with gas prices over $4 a gallon, it’s ridiculous. There’s something seriously wrong going on in the world, and our President Busha has been saying such strange things too, you’d think a man like him would be able to force prices down, but nooo. So, have you gone hiking lately?” “I used to love hiking.” said Mrs. Hill mournfully, “but now I’m old and stiff and can’t even walk very far. I used to know everything about the hills around Winsted.” “I’m sure Ronnie has been up those hills, too, dear.” said Mrs. Pine. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d already been to the silent place, you know, out by the Dike and all. Have you?” Ronnie Wendy was silent, bending his sharp eyes on each of them. “Oh, he has, he has.” said Mrs. Hill. “I can see it in his eyes. No one who steps foot there remains the same.” “Do you know the meanings of the hills yet?” Mrs. Deer said anxiously. “Who are you really?” Ronnie Wendy said in a very quiet voice. All three old ladies fell still. He gave a faint smile. “It seems we all have our little secrets. Am I treading your paths the right way? Have I stepped aside to left or to right?” “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, honey.” Mrs. Deer said, the very picture of fluffy bewilderment. “Oh yes you do.” He turned his bike right side up. “I’m moving to Burrville in a week, by the way.” he said. “A friend of mine offered to let me take over his house.” “Really? Are you sure you can afford it, honey?” said Mrs. Pine anxiously. “Oh, that’s such a shame, and here we were hoping you would be able to keep mowing the lawn and all…” Ronnie Wendy was not listening to the fluttery dithering of the strange old woman. He was looking at their eyes. Very odd eyes. An eerie satisfaction and also apprehension lurked in their milky depths. He felt suddenly a vast and quiet tension, as if great moving forces were balancing around him, and tilting one way then another… “Do not bandy words with me, Weird Sisters.” he heard himself say. “For I have walked on Temple Fell, and I have heard there my true name.” Strange and ancient smiles grew wider on the three withered faces before him; for a moment it seemed as if the very hills were smiling in majesty upon him, and then they grew, then they changed, their eyes shot off to left and right like flaming stars, and their faces expanded to encompass the heavens, but still their huge and placid smiles remained. And their giant mouths began to move in the darkness that was around him, and he heard their ancient voices in a weird and crooning chant, singing strangely in the sky as three pairs of eyelike stars flitted back and forth across them. '' '' “Along, along the gleaming path '' ''The glowing stars did go '' ''Flee, oh flee the dark one’s wrath '' ''For starlight is his foe '' ''Away, away you shining lamps '' ''Of loving gratitude '' ''None, oh none will brave the damp '' ''Of night with fortitude '' ''O Stars, O Stars who once shone bright '' ''Who kept the Dark at bay '' ''Gone, O gone now is the light '' ''That drove the Night away '' ''Wander, wander neath the clear '' ''And chilling light of Moon '' ''Weep, oh weep uncounted tears '' ''Heed not the words she croons! '' ''“Dying, dying are the Stars '' ''Empty, lifeless light '' ''Fading, fading from so far '' ''Once so near and bright!” '' ''Heartless, heartless lovely maid '' ''So far and yet so cruel '' ''Scorn, O scorn her heatless aid '' ''Refuse to be her tool! '' ''Starlight, starlight….” '' '' '' Their voices faded and swam away, as Ronnie thrashed in the darkness, and still from a great distance he could see the pairs of starlike eyes, rotating around the chill and pale orb of the queer and heartless moon, and the cold blue light seemed to shrivel his skin…. Slowly he pulled himself out of the marshy lawn. It was bright day again. He seemed to have been lying there for a little time, to judge by the clamminess of his back, and the three landladies were just coming out of their door and walking along the flowerbeds, chattering to themselves. His head ached. Had he dreamed, or had they cast him into dream? He got up, a little groggily. “Oh, Ronnie, there you are!” cried Mrs. Deer. “We were just going to ask if you wanted to have supper with us, Hill was going to make one of her potato salads…” “No, thank you, I really can’t.” said Ronnie. “I have too much packing to do when I get back.” “Packing? Are you leaving us, sweetie?” “Yes, I told you that already.” Ronnie said with a nasty smile. “But you never told us that. He hasn’t told us he was going away, has he, Deer?” asked Mrs. Pine, looking honestly bewildered. ''So it did happen, Ronnie thought.'' Nice try at the dream-bluff, ladies…but you’re dealing with Ronnie the Revealer now '' '' '' '' '' It seemed so odd to be preparing to leave the two old rooms where he had weathered one of the coldest and snowiest winters in 15 years. He looked around the familiar rooms, the old beams, the fireplace, the smoky stones and old wood floor. It would be sad in some ways; he would miss the place. But Hunter Light had paid the rent in his little blue house, by the year, and so when he would be moving in with his new wife Forest’s mother, the lease would still have half a year to run. He had offered it to Ronnie Wendy. Yes, he would miss the place. But he would decidedly not miss the Weird Sisters. And being closer to Winsted was also a plus. The more Ronnie thought about it, the stranger it got. The mysterious words of Arheled, the strange quest of the hills and the totally meaningless signs that had resulted. Forest’s peculiar dreams. His own impending sense of something huge and ominous, something in the future arising from the past, something in the past coming to fulfillment in the future. A grapevine with kinks resembling rock folds. A hieroglyphic on a boulder most likely formed by fifty-year-old graffiti but which he felt was important. A name with a miscarved letter and a date with a miscarved 2. Cuts in a hilltop. The date 1790. How any of this related to the Road and the Stars was more than he could fathom. Darkness, darkness everywhere… '' Forest tossed and turned. It was way too warm in here. The day had been over 70 and it was still cloyingly nice outside. He had almost gone to sleep when the darkness began to seize. He tried to stay awake. It could not be done. The room whirled in his weary eyes as they slammed shut like lids. '' For darkness has a name… '' Forest found himself upon a high, cold, clear place. What he was standing on he did not know, for he was not looking at it, though it receded to left and right in his peripheral vision like a band of gleaming white. Darkness hung before him, in which weird whorls and streaks and pricks of colored light hung unfamiliarly. He had an impression of aftermath, as if he had walked onto the ruins and ashes of a great battle or some cosmic disaster. Right in front of him was a golf ball, hanging in space, a dead grey and mottled most curiously. Now it was growing larger, as if it was drawing near or he approaching it; and he could see it was no ball, but a round sphere of stone, and it gave out no light, and upon it stood a projecting peak. As the asteroid grew Forest saw it was a man, a man made of stone, so tall he jutted from the surface like a five-mile mountain. And the globe grew no larger, and now Forest heard a voice uplifted in woe, for the giant was lamenting the ship that had been and the flower that had perished. The darkness was no longer silent, for echoing through the spaces Forest heard an eerie laughter, heartless and chilling, cold, filled with crystal derision. The giant turned, glowing all of a sudden with silver light; but the mocking laughter did not abate. '' “Who are you? Why do you come?” ''the giant shouted. Slowly there came into sight a maiden formed of light, a strange cold silvery-white-blue, and upon her beautiful face was an expression of utter coldness, of saneless laughter bereft of life’s good warmth though not at all lifeless, in fact vibrant with a dreadful vividity. She bore a silver bow with curled limbs, and in a crystal quiver great arrows like fletched spears, and they wavered with dark power that made their silver gleam flicker. Her dress was hued the same marbelline blue-white as her gleaming flesh, but wrapped so as to leave exposed one round and dreadful breast. ''“I am Diana, the huntress of the gods.” '' rang her strange voice. ''“I have come to rule the Moon.” '' “You are not from of the Gods, cold bowsmaid.” the giant said. Terrible in stern majesty was his face, a king regarding a foe. “I know them, and all their people…for I am of their number!” “You are so no longer,” Diana answered, a nasty mirth in her eyes. “You have fallen. The Gods have cast down their scepter and yielded their rule. We shall rise to replace them. The lights of Heaven shall be ours to command. Fallen God, yield to the younger gods!” Towering above her like the wall of a mountain, the giant answered, “Thou bastard brood, spawned of sin from Star and Giant, hast thou now dared to show thy face in Heaven, among the wrack of the fallen skies and the ruin of the firmament, thinking mayhap that thy sires are powerless now and thou canst usurp our place?!” And the maiden of marble laughed. “From the Gods am I come, and the Giants are my father; I shall nourish all the world, I shall be their virgin goddess. I am the mother of the earth. I am the birther of the witches. You are gone. Cease to cling to your old house, and let another take thy place!” Swift and sudden she rose in size, until she stood with the giant eye against eye, and leaping forward she grappled with him, and they staggered back and forth across the surface of the dead globe, which was now grown so huge as to be almost a little planet. And it shook underneath them and its’ new skin was rent, and fire gusted about the two great entities as they struggled for mastery, and their feet splashed in seas of flooding lavas, and great explosions shot fountains of rocks and fire into the voids. Round and round the stony globe they battled, and the giant was stronger than she and cast her down, and the skin of the Moon wrinkled into mountains at her impact. “Didst thou not know thou canst not overcome a God?” he roared. “I am Tilion!” “No longer is this the Vessel of the Rose Undying, and no longer art thou its’ steersman!” Diana mocked. And she shifted her form, streaming from his grasp like white fire, and snatched up her bow, and taking solid form a horizon away she took a dreadful arrow from her quiver, black and silver, flickering with power; and she nocked it, and she drew it back, and she released it into the heart of the giant of stone. The power in that arrow knocked him from the surface of the Moon. As he tumbled through the void Diana plunged into the ground like a diver into a pool, and there was a flash as she became one with the Moon, and the eruptions cooled, and the scarred globe fell still. The tremendous voice of the Lord of the Moon sounded through the black heavens as he tumbled through the void, vast with grief and great with woe and helpless anger: “Urwendi, Urwendi, canst thou hear thee my cry? Is there any left of thee after the wrath of heaven?” Slowly the sight of Forest followed him as he tumbled ever farther, and there burned an expanding storm, a ball of mottled fire, slowly distending and churning, and a sad face among it, a woman’s face, as glowing as the fire around her, and she said, “I am here, Silimo.” And Tilion’s stone face grew wider in dismay. “What is happening to you?” he cried. “What has he done to you? Me he turned to stone, to stand upon stone, and from stone was I thrusted, my ship usurped, that I may not preside over even the wrack of the Moon.” “Me he has made into flame, my form distending, my power condensing into gas and into flame, fusing with the flame of the Fruit that I steered. Do not come, Tilion. You would melt. Never again can I know your embrace. We are ended.” A high, hard, roaring laughter burst about them. Another being stood in the heavens, a man all of fire, and his eyes burned cool and yet careless; there was a titanic indifference about him that made the human watcher suddenly stiff with fear. He wore no clothes upon his glowing skin, and slung upon his back he had a lyre, but in his hands a mighty bow of gold; and in a quiver of black metal there glowered the same fell arrows that his sister bore. “So you are.” he said. Fear flickered upon the beautiful face of the Sun. “You cannot approach me, Apollo!” she cried. “I will destroy you if you dare to draw near!” “Long have I longed for thee, Urwendi,” the god replied, “but until now I was weak, and thou wert strong. But I have knowledge now that no other held before me, and things have been told me that even the Stars did not know—and they destroyed themselves in the knowing. Though a sleepless guard was set upon the way into the World, still he has found me, and he has given me the secret to grow strong.” “None walk beyond the Walls save that one we do not mention, that shameless ghost, that slain wraith of him who thought him mighty; he can tell you nothing save the secret of damnation!” the Sun answered, and a brief memory of the power of her ancient glance burned again in her eyes. And Apollo laughed. “Nay, Urwendi, he can tell me more than that. All the forbidden power my uncles struggled for, all the secret lore of the making of the lands is his to impart, for he was there before us and he put his power into it, and he told me how to draw it up.” “No spirit can surmount those walls; no power can pass the unsleeping guards who watch them! Your boast is all a lie, bastard of the Planets, baseborn of Venus and a Giant; ashamed am I to name my blood that lives in thy damned veins.” “Yes, Grandmother the Sun, thy blood is mine, and when I possess thy failing body all thy power will be mine, and thou wilt no longer be aware of the abomination of our union, for thy spirit is bound by the curse of the doom upon the lights of the heavens and shall be chained in form of flaming gas. Even as the Stars, so wilt thee; but I will command thy new form.” And the Lord of the Moon tried to come closer, tried to assail the body of the god, but Apollo took an arrow from his quiver of blackness, and he nocked it on his bow of burning gold, and he fired that arrow into the heart of the giant of stone. And Silmo staggered in the airs and fell from the skies, and like a meteor of white fire he slammed into the Earth. Flat upon his back he lay, the blasted water flowing back around him, the water that covered the Earth, all was water; and where he lay the rock had split like great hands and rose about him; and yet still unconquered was the Moon, and glowing with fire he lifted his body up upon its’ feet and stood across the ice-filled valley he had landed in, this valley, the valley of Connecticut; and he made a mighty leap and slammed both feet upon the icebound earth, so that a mountain near New Britain had a gap punched into it, and up he sped into the sky, the last remains of his angelic power boosting his enraging flight into the airs. Then Apollo launched another arrow; full upon the heart of Silmo it did strike, and three was more than he could bear, and down he toppled through the skies to fall again where he first landed; and his back melted, fusing him unbreakable to the land on which he lay. And he struggled to break free, splitting a fault in his stone chin and cracking the hills south and north of him; and the curse was completed as he lay on his back, and with a shudder he went still, an inert stone, a sleeping range of hills five miles long, clamped to the earth by hands of sandstone. Then Apollo entered the fires of the Sun, and Forest saw for a brief moment in the brightness the shape of a woman’s body amid the fire, and the god clasped it to him, and the face of Urwendi convulsed with anguish and with hatred, and swirled like a pot boiling, and spots of fire bubbled up like freckles until they suffused her skin, and she dissolved into fire. And the Sun grew in size, bulging and storming from within, and Apollo’s face bearded with flame filled the surface for a moment, and his thunderous laugh sent Forest spinning off into wheeling worlds of splintered light. And as he spun he found himself weeping uncontrollably, until his sobs jerked him awake and he sat up, still sobbing wildly, in his bed. Bell came scurrying in from her room and Forest flinched and stuffed his pillow in his mouth, trying to stifle he desperate bitter weeping. It only succeeded in smothering him. “Forest! Forest! What’s the matter? What happened?” cried Bell, jumping up on the bed beside him and putting her hands on his shoulders. Forest lifted a ravaged face to her. The moon shone in at the window, strong, cold and ghastly. ''“Apollo.” he choked out. “Apollo raped the Sun.” Bell’s hands stiffened. Her eyes dilated as she stared at her brother in the awful light of the cold Moon that shone upon them. They remained like that, brother and sister, staring upon each other as the warm spring night passed them unheeding. April was coming to a lovely end. Easter was late, but arrived with beautiful weather: balmy and 70s, and all the trees and bushes were suddenly blushing in every shade of spring and pastel green. Maple flowers turned the Nine Hills pale yellow-green, and new-mown lawns suddenly shone like emeralds, and in the fields dandelions opened like yellow stars. After Easter it seemed to rain every other day, but a soft warm kind of rain, not the raw grim rains of before; and in between the air was warm and soft. Ronnie stood in his doorway and checked his watch. He hadn’t really expected anyone to show up, but he decided he would give them another hour before he tackled the furniture by himself. His landladies had driven off that morning and hopefully wouldn’t get back until after he was moved out. No, here was Travel’s car now, and Brooke’s just behind her with Bell and Forest in it. Doors closing mingled with the chatter of birds and the murmer of the nearby Farmington River, high with rain; and then Travel was coming toward him, dark-haired and pretty in her own way (though Brooke outranked her), and the trio of gold-haired, pleasant-faced Brooke with her amazing light blue eyes, curly-haired Bell nearly half a foot shorter with her tart vivid face, and sandy-haired, colourless Forest, barely noticeable in brown and grey. “Hello, everyone!” Ronnie said with a big smile. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming!” “Yeah, we must be all of, what, ten minutes late?” quipped Bell. “Wow, so this is the creepy old place which makes the great Ronnie reek of smoke.” “You think I'' smell?” he retorted. “Wait till you get inside!” Laughing the friends entered the wing of the old house. It did, indeed, smell of wood smoke. One room was loaded with boxes and the dismantled bed. “Actually, it smells like bacon.” remarked Brooke. “That’s cause I cut up an old deadfall of really good seasoned oakheart.” Ronnie said. “Oak smells nice and meaty.” “It must be in like every piece of clothing you have.” said Travel. “Every time I meet you you smell smoky. It’s very interesting.” “Better than my dad.” laughed Brooke. “He smells of tobacco and beer.” “Yeah, I have enough smoke without needing that.” They hung around munching the batch of cookies Grandmother Lane had sent with Travel, until finally Ronnie said, “Okay, let’s get started. I’ll get the furniture in my truck, boxes can go in your cars last of all. Swish, smack, whip crack!” “Batter and beat, yammer and bleat…” cut in Travel. “Work, work, nor dare to shirk!” everyone shouted in chorous. It still felt like a party, even with lugging furniture (and Ronnie totally astounding the girls by picking up an armchair single-handed) and ferrying boxes and bags back and forth until everyone was hot and sweaty. But they actually managed to get loaded up in two hours. “Let’s adjourn to the river for a damp lunch.” suggested Brooke. “Hmmm…you know, there is a nice area of which I know of…” Ronnie mused. “Nobody brought swim things.” protested Travel. “Well, we can go in with everything on, then; I’m sure your shirts need washing by now!” retorted Brooke. “Hey, I did use deodorant.” said Ronnie. There was a soft knock at the door. Bell without thinking opened it right up, and Forest looked over and found himself looking into the eyes of the three old ladies. “Why, hello, everyone, I’m so glad we caught you before you left.” piped Mrs. Deer. “Why, hello, Brooke dear! So nice to see you here! And Travel too! Quite a collection you have, Ronnie.” “Yes, I’ve been seducing all the local girls.” he drawled. “I know, my parents accused him of robbing the cradle when he came to pick me up.” Bell said archly. “Yeah, we’re all Ronnie’s harem of girlfriends.” Brooke laughed. “Hello there, little Forest.” said Mrs. Pine. “I’m not at all surprised you’re here.” “I know who you are.” Forest said softly. “And who are we?” the deep mournful voice of Mrs. Hill answered. “You are the Three Sisters. You are the Weirds of the Earth. I know you, and you know us.” His friends were almost as startled as the three old ladies to hear this from the silent pale boy. “Yes,” said Mrs. Hill, “we know you, Children of the Road. You are of the Six. But you are incomplete. The maid who walks alone is not here.” “Tell me, Weird Sisters,” said Ronnie, “whom do you serve?” Mrs. Hill fumbled in her bag. “These are for you, Ronnie.” she said, handing him a bag of cookies. They smelled amazingly good, so that his eyes watered just thinking about how they tasted. Strangely enough the others didn’t seem to be affected. “We thought you might like them. That’s really why we’re here. Oh yes, Ronnie, here’s your deposit back, and do you have the key?” “You have not answered my question.” said Ronnie. “And you do not have the key.” she answered. Ronnie felt in his pocket. The key, which he distinctly remembered putting in, was gone. “Oh, don’t worry about it. We have spares.” she said, waving her hand. “I’m sure you’ll find it. When you do, you will know the answers.” “Thank you for the cookies.” said Ronnie. “We’re going to grab lunch and head to my new place. Well, goodbye ladies, and thank you so much for all you’ve done for me!” “Goodbye Ron honey, and don’t overwork yourself! Things will work out, I’m sure. You can’t expect all the answers to come at once.” Mrs. Deer said cheerfully, and waving goodbye the three strange old women headed back to their house. “Okay, they really are weird.” said Travel. “That was kind of creepy.” said Bell. “Forest, you said you knew them. Who are they?” The quiet boy looked at them with absent bright eyes. “I don’t know.” he said. “I just…saw.” “Saw what?” pressed Bell. “I saw.” Forest stumbled on. “When I looked at them I knew what they were. But I don’t!” He stopped again. “I think he means that when he saw them he knew they were the Weirds, but what the Weirds are he doesn’t know.” Ronnie guessed. Forest nodded, looking relieved. In a more sober mood they headed out to their cars. Following Ronnie they emerged from the drive out onto the back road from Riverton beside the river, big square old houses as regular as building blocks on the side away from the water. They crossed the iron bridge and turned left along the river. Beyond the drive-in was a turnoff to the left down a bumpy white gravel road. This wound charmingly among the soft faint green of new-opening leaves, strong white April sun beaming through them. They passed two or three parking areas for fishermen and reached a round dead-end where they parked. It was breezy but very warm. Ronnie took them down a path that led downriver over rolling ridges of grey silty soil, honeysuckle and bittersweet growing thickly among the grey and green swamp plants. On their left the river flowed, deep and strong and silent. It was perhaps a hundred yards wide. The river bottoms were wonderfully muggy and everyone was in high spirits, even the quiet Forest sporting a large grin. “So where should we stop for lunch? I bet they’d throw us out of the Wingy Thingy if we walked in all sticky like this.” said Travel. “We’re all poor, so why not use the dollar menu at McDonald’s.” Ronnie replied. “Hey, just because ''some of us are cheapos doesn’t mean the rest of us are.” “Well, I am part Irish.” “Irish I was rich.” put in Bell at this point. “That sounds like a tongue twister.” said Brooke. “I mean, try saying it several times. Irish I was rich—Irish I was which—Irish I was wish—''oh, bother.” “You’re doing that on purpose.” said Bell. The path branched several times, finally winding up to a junction with a swampy rutted jeep road. The river here was very broad and deep, and about twenty feet from the path was a small brown-white sandbar under an old leaning ash. A tiny pointed lagoon and a muddy bank with sprouting water-flag lay behind it at the left end, and there a fallen willow protruded flat, a foot above the water, running nearly 20 feet out over deep water. “Ooh! This is perfect!” squealed Brooke. “I’m not going in there until you tell me if it’s cold.” said Travel. Ronnie and Brooke were already taking off their shoes and socks, and Brooke doffed her shirt, but as she had a dark-blue sports bra underneath it looked almost like a tanktop and nobody minded. Brooke scampered out on the willow and jumped in with a scream; Ronnie followed immediately after. Bell and Forest were apparently electing to wade. “Whoo! Ronnie, high-five me! This is awesome!” shrieked Brooke. Ronnie, laughing at her, duly high-fived. “Is it cold?” Travel screamed. “No!” both of the swimmers lied through their teeth. “Jump off the tree, Travel!” Ronnie called. Travel made her way cautiously to the tip of the tree, where she perched precariously while shrieking at the very thought of jumping in, until Ronnie threatened to come out and push her. She did a sort of belly-flop facefirst and came up gasping. “You ''lied! You '' both lied!” was the first thing she said. Ronnie, whose teeth were beginning to chatter, cheerfully admitted it and nearly got ducked by Travel, but he was too strong for her and ducked her instead. She came up laughing and screaming that he sucked, and started splashing him. This led to a vicious splash war, which ended in everyone scrambling ashore because they were freezing. Bell and Forest were jumping off the tree now. Brooke went back off the tree about five more times, but Ronnie and Travel decided to sit in the sun and warm up. Bell and Forest joined them after a while, and Brooke last. “Brrrrrrrrr.” she shivered. “Wow, I think your lips are actually blue.” said Ronnie. “You are ''in-sane.” Travel said amusedly. “Certifiable.” Brooke agreed, wrapping Ronnie’s blanket—unpacked for the purpose—around her. Her teeth chattered so violently that in the end Ronnie made her climb up and down the ash a few times to get her muscles going, and that seemed to help. Still talking, they headed back along the path. The maple flowers overhead hung like pale green streaks; Forest thought they looked like smudges of paint. They drove up out of Pleasant Valley, leaving behind the easternmost of the Five Villages. A big dark-green SUV with golden red flame decals amid skulls, passed them as they pulled out onto Rt. 44. Ronnie could not see inside the tinted windows, but a queer prickling sensation shot through him as if unseen but evil eyes had passed casually across his face. He floored the gas pedal and his old truck actually passed the speed limit. They decided to hit the dollar menu after all, as nobody really wanted the embarrassment of dribbling all over the floor. At Ronnie’s suggestion, when they reached McDonald’s Brooke drove through the drive-thru and ordered for everyone while the others parked. Then Brooke pulled over next to them and they sat on the hoods of their cars and ate. “You know, one thing that always strikes me funny about Lord of the Rings is when the Sun is referred to as '' She'' and the Moon as '' He.'' It just sounds so weird.” said Brooke. Bell looked up quickly, but Forest said nothing. “Yeah, I mean in all the myths I’ve heard about the Sun is always masculine and the Moon feminine.” said Travel. “Was there some reason Tolkien reversed their genders? I mean, it makes cool fantasy, and I guess he got tired of Latin stereotypes on the heavenly bodies.” “There’s a different reason, actually.” said Ronnie. “I was reading the Norse myths, and it seems like all the Germanic peoples have opposite sexual attributes to the heavenly bodies. They have a masculine Moon and a feminine Sun, but all the Southern mythologies—Latin, Greek, Egypt, even the Indians over here, have the opposite, with the Sun as he. Tolkien tended to exalt the north over the south, as far as spirit and culture goes, and he hated the Nazis for perverting ‘that noble northern spirit.’ So he followed the Norse when he gave genders to the heavens.” “Yes, but why is that?” Travel pressed. “Why did they arrive at opposites? I mean, the North and South aren’t as unlike as East and West, where in the East dragons are good, while over in Europe both North and South know that dragons are evil.” “The gods did it.” Forest blurted. Ronnie looked sharply at him. “Which gods?” “He had a really creepy dream last night.” Bell explained. “Forest.” said Ronnie. “Speak. Who did it, and what did they do, and to whom did they do it?” “The gods.” said Forest. “Not Gods with a capital. Lesser gods. Bastards, the Moon called them, born from Giant and Star. There were two of them. Diana and Apollo.” The eyes of Ronnie burned into Forest’s. “What did the gods do?” “They conquered and raped the Sun and Moon.” “Yeah,” interjected Bell, “it was really creepy. He was sobbing when he woke up.” Under Ronnie’s sharp questions Forest soon told them the whole dreadful dream. “There is a mountain in Hamden, down in Connecticut’s Central Valley, which when beheld from north or south looks like a chain of rolling hills, like a man on his back, chin raised to heaven.” mused Ronnie. “They even call it Sleeping Giant.” “That is just super-weird.” whispered Bell. “It was known originally as Blue Hills, but the Indians have a legend calling him Hobbamock, who went on a rampage because his people were neglected. He stamped his foot at Middletown, changing the course of the Great River, but was cast asleep by the benevolent spirit Kietan. Evidently the legend had a foundation.” “Yes, but Forest didn’t see him changing a river.” “Of course not; the river was under ice.” said Ronnie testily. “The Indians saw a broad flat valley where the Great River was supposed to go. It doesn’t. At Middletown it cuts into the Durham hills and winds through gorges it couldn’t possibly have cut through. So the Indians deduced that the Giant stamped there. The only trouble is, the Connecticut River isn’t the only river to cut right across the terrain where it has no business going: four or five other rivers do as well. Geologists guess that before the land was delved by the ancient waters, sediment overlay the flat highland, and diverted the rivers south-east, regardless of the underlying terrain. The rivers then cut their way down into the cross-grained rocks. Others guess that streams ate backward from the southeast during the cutting-down of the land, diverting the rivers. I would frankly guess earthquake faults that have since been dug out of existence by the river gorges they caused. So the Giant couldn’t have changed the river, as the diversion happened before the Ice Age. But the Cook’s Gap up at New Britain, that’s another story. No river could have cut that. Either earthquake and glacier ate it out, or the Giant smashed it.” “So that’s why the genders are different?” Bell said. “Because the Sun and Moon were raped?” “If Diana now holds the Moon, which was once steered by Silmo, and Apollo has raped Urwendi the Sun, then yes, that would account for the reversal.” said Ronnie. “The old tradition lingered in the North because of contact with Men and the last few Elves. Everywhere else, men worshipped the gods that were there.” The green SUV barrelled down the curving road. The round beefy head of its’ driver bobbed in time with the demonic jabber of the radio. His passenger, a strikingly beautiful young woman in the briefest of outfits, was smiling. Despite the tinted windows she wore sunglasses. The policeman directing traffic around the bridge repair over the Farmington River waved them through, holding up cars from both directions to do so. The driver did not trouble to wave; with the tinted windows t wouldn’t have been seen anyway. The cop knew him. They ought to know him. The SUV pulled smoothly into the driveway of the old Colonial house just after the bridge. The engine remained idling as driver and passenger got out, looking the place over with an air at once of insolence and ownership. Mrs. Pine was clipping the shrubbery. Mrs. Hill looked up from where she was digging in the flowerbed. Mrs. Deer turned from filling the birdfeeder. “Can we help you, young man?” said Mrs. Pine. “I heard you have a room to let.” the driver replied. “Really.” Mrs. Deer answered. “I didn’t know we had an ad out.” “You must be mistaken, young man,” Mrs. Hill said in her solemn voice. “We are the only ones here.” “Ah, but there you are wrong.” the beautiful girl said. She had a rich but hard voice, like silk sewn over a knife-blade. “You have a boy here. A young man about my age. We need to talk with him.” Mrs. Deer was walking over from the bird feeder, a bag of bird seed in her hands. Mrs. Pine folded her arms. Mrs. Hill got creakily to her feet. “Well, I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, honey,” Mrs. Pine addressed the blond beauty. “But I’m afraid we are the only ones living here.” “Then you won’t mind, I hope, if we look around a little?” said the young woman. Her deep tan-gold skin contrasted strangely with her lighter hair, and the sunglasses over her eyes gave her a fearsome, remote impersonality, at once goddess and whore. The pair walked confidently toward the deserted wing. “You have no authority here.” the deep doleful voice of Mrs. Hill halted them in their tracks. The driver turned. He had a round, ruddy face with hearty features, but his eyes were hard and dark, and somehow lifeless. “I have the run of all the police in NW Connecticut.” he answered quietly. “I can get any kind of authority I need.” The three old ladies stood side by side. Mrs. Deer idly swung her sack of seeds. Mrs. Pine slowly squeezed the handles of her shears, snip, snip, snip. All the trees and shrubs rustled and sighed as if in some concealed stirring of the air, but over Pleasant Valley the air hung still and stifling. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, “but this is our house, and no one enters it but us.” The driver looked at them in a strange sort of way, as if considering, or taking stock of something he had not expected. “One of the Six lives in that house.” he declared. “I was positive before, but now I am certain. And the Six are not your concern.” Mrs. Pine wagged her shears at him. The air seemed tense, as if charged with lightning. “I would show a little more appreciation of your elders, young whippersnappers.” she said tartly. “What is or is not our concern is none of your business. What I am more concerned with is a pair of trespassing busybodies.” “We may be young, but we are not stupid.” the young lady in the brief outfit said with equal tartness. “We know he is one of the Six. We know the Six have been to Temple Fell. He will lead us to the others.” She turned her blank black sunglassed stare upon the old women''. “Where is Ronmond Wendtho?” “Where it always was.” cackled Mrs. Deer, swinging her bag of birdseed. “Hills don’t commonly get up and walk, do they?” “Do ''not mock me, you shriveled old hags.” the beautiful woman said, and flat and toneless though it was, her voice seemed suddenly potent with power. The air above Pleasant Valley darkened as clouds swiftly gathered, unfolding from themselves. “You know whom we seek. You know who we are.” “Yes, we do.” Mrs. Hill answered. Her trowel stood erect in her fist as if it was a sword. The ground under them seemed tightened, somehow, as if it was a clenching muscle. A slow and peaceless smile grew on the three old faces. “But do you know who we are?” The ruddy man and golden woman remained silent, yet there was a tauntness about their pose, like one preparing for a blow. “Our reasons are our own.” Mrs. Hill boomed. “Our business is our own. Our purpose is our own. You have no right to it. Our house belongs to us. Get off of it and get you gone, Cornello!” The sun was hidden. Black clouds flickering from within with an eerie green light churned and boiled over Pleasant Valley. Tree and earth seemed to creak, poised and pent and quivering. Faint stirs of unrestful air shifted around the old house. Yet despite the queer gloom of the shadowed hills, none of the three old women were shadowed at all. Cornello, very carefully and slowly, began walking backwards towards his idling car. The beautiful woman resisted his pull on her hand at first, but he held her firmly and she too retreated. Quickly flinging open the doors the climbed in, even as green lightning began to spark and fork out of the clouds, and the dark green SUV with the awful symbols burning on it in the dusk, screeched out of the driveway and fled from Pleasant Valley. ' '